5 Times Michelle Reads The Alchemist
by RebelzHeart
Summary: And one time that Peter does. (Homecoming verse.)
1. Chapter 1

It starts, as everything seems to, with MJ reading.

It was the first time that she'd sat down across from them instead of down the isle.

She didn't make a big deal out of it, just stared at them, raised two fingers to her forehead and greeted them with a light, "'Sup, losers."

If they were completely honest, they had spent a lot of time just gaping at her and then at each other, before sort of motioning like 'do you... am I... is this...' and then just kind of trying to act cool but failing miserably.

They rock-paper-scissored over who would broach the topic, and Peter ended up having his luck fail him.

He popped his head over to peer at the cover, making an awkward position with his neck stretched like that and head tilted.

MJ raised an eyebrow. "What're you doing?" She asked, popping a french fry in her mouth.

Peter turned bright red. "Well, um... What are you reading?"

The corners of MJ's lips turned up ever so slightly (" _She's smiling?" Ned gasped, staring in awe. "No way you're MJ. Are you an alien?"_ ) as she showed them the cover. " _The_ _Alchemist_ , by Paulo Coehlo. Good book, you should check it out."

And if her sitting across from them at lunch wasn't shocking enough, then her smiling like that and giving them a book recommendation probably was.

"What's it about?" Peter would be the first to admit that it wasn't the best of questions (it was certainly the most generic), but he didn't really know what else to ask and he wanted to keep the conversation going.

"Destiny." MJ replied, shrugging ever so slightly, but with that faded sort of look that people got whenever they were talking about something that was really important to them, or something that just wormed into their lives and made them smile without even thinking about it.

"Destiny? That doesn't sound all that good." Ned frowned as he finished off his chocolate milk. "I mean, following a predestined route that determines our fate seems pretty cookie cutter if you ask me."

MJ wrinkled her nose in agreement, and Peter had the fleeting thought that it was the same look she got when talking to avid feminists, like she was disgusted with the world but liked the person that she was talking to. "Yeah, no, not that kind of destiny. The kind where you're at peace with the world, and you're fated to have a great adventure, but you can choose. And each person's great adventure isn't something that's apart from them, nor something that they have to do, but merely something that makes them complete and allows them to fulfill a great part of their selves."

"That makes no sense." Ned admitted, playing idly with his bendy straw. "But that sounds awesome, so I'm converted."

MJ shot Ned a look where, on any other person, they might be laughing (except this was MJ, so she had to stay cool and robot-ish and stuff). "Sounds good to me." She said, and Peter had the weirdest realization that she hadn't called them dorks since this conversation had started.

"Can you give us an example?" Peter asked, furrowing his brow and linking his fingers behind his head.

"Yeah, sure. Like, Peter, your personal journey might have been to be Spider-man."

Peter choked on his milk. "What... I'm not... what makes you think..."

MJ rolled her eyes as thought to say _what am I going to do with this guy_. "Hey, dweeb," Somehow the insult made it very real that this was MJ and not actually an alien impostor. "I've known since Washington Monument. If you want to keep a secret identity, you _seriously_ need to do something about your voice."

"Oh, um, that's, well..." Peter turned bright red.

"I'm smart, remember?" MJ's eyebrow inched a bit higher, then she turned to Ned. "So, like, Personal Journeys. This guy starts out as a shepard..."


	2. Chapter 2

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He's late to a Decathlon practice this time, because there was a fire and he had to go, and there's still smoke in his lungs and smudge of something like charcoal on his skin when he walks in and slides next to Ned, ears burning and eyes lowered.

Michelle doesn't say a word, just starts including him in the next round of questions even as Flash begins teasing him.

He finds comfort in this, and silently thanks her (but not out loud, because she'd just call him a sap and scowl at him).

After Decathlon, she goes over and raises an eyebrow and asks, "What's more important than your team?" He sort of flounders for a bit so she pulls out her cell phone, checks the news, and hums. "Oh, good job on the fire."

He sort of gapes at her and she just raises an eyebrow. "You... what are you... I mean, what..."

"You being in spandex? Known for a while. I'm smart, remember?" Michelle keeps scrolling through the news, casually, as though she didn't just drop a giant bomb on Peter. "Whatever your reason, you need to make up. Can you and Ned stay for some extra practice?"

"I don't know what you're... that doesn't... I'm not, I mean..."

"Save it, Spiderling." Michelle wiggles her fingers. "Do yourself a favor and don't freak out. Anyways, extra practice?"

And Peter nods at that, tries not to freak out, and is quick and eager to latch onto the idea of practice and not that _Michelle knows and he can't even freak out properly_ , and texts Aunt May, _Staying a bit late for extra practice, be home soon_ , and Ned sighs that he'll only stay on the condition that he can work on his new LEGO structure while he quizzes Peter.

"It's super cool and I've just _got_ to complete it as soon as I can." Ned pleads, holding up the box that contains his masterpiece in progress.

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Michelle quotes at him, raising an eyebrow, completely unimpressed as she moves over to a chair by the front row and plops down, book in hand.

Ned gapes at her, and Peter realizes that he's still internally freaking out over the whole _Michelle knows_ thing.

"Wait, am I just doing all the quizzing, then?" Ned demands, pointing a finger at himself.

Michelle simply raises an eyebrow at Ned, and well, that's really all the answer that he needs.

Ned groans and complains a bit, but he doesn't argue, (never argue with Michelle, if she wanted, that girl could become the greatest lawyer in all creation... not that she would, of course, since she's just going to go straight for world domination), merely sighs and grounds out a tight, "Fine," though the unhappy tone is mainly for show, Peter knows that he finds quizzing kind of fun, in a weird way.

Peter tilts his head slightly to catch the title of the book and starts, "You're still reading that?"

Michelle looks around herself, as though searching for something to throw at him, but finds nothing, so she just turns back to Peter with an I'm-suffering-because-you're-stupid expression on her face. " _Rereading_ it. It's a good book."

And Peter doesn't argue, (because as previously stated, arguing with Michelle is dumb). He kind of dips his head, making a _huh_ face, and murmurs, "Maybe I should read it."

Michelle looks sort of surprised and on guard in that paranoid fashion that only Michelle could be, and then she answers, shrugging as though it weren't a big deal (he knows it probably is, though, Michelle cares a lot about her books), "There's no maybe about it, you should."

Peter grins at her, a wry, bright smile that pulls across his full face and crinkles the edges of his eyes and smooths out his cheeks, and Michelle almost smiles back before remembering that she has a reputation to maintain.

"I will," Peter says, bright and decisive, and he turns to Ned. "What do you think?"

Ned shrugs and holds up the flash cards. "I don't care, as long as we're still up for Star Wars night and you answer the questions before dinner."

Peter flushes, and sits down, only just remembering exactly why they were there. "Right. Fire away."

" _So, when Napoleon was defeated..."_


	3. Chapter 3

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"So, this is my place," Michelle gestures at her house in a way that might have been awkward with anyone else, but with Michelle just ends up very nonchalant, and Peter doesn't really have time to gape, because Michelle's already moving on and Ned's also following her, which means that Peter needs to start moving his feet and stop thinking, _whoa, her house is huge!_

"Your house is huge." He squeaks out anyways, because he has absolutely no tact and always sticks his foot into his mouth.

"Yeah," Michelle agrees lightly as they move up the stairs. "It is. Should probably stop gaping at it before your tongue falls out of your mouth, though."

Peter shut his mouth and turned bright red. "Is it that obvious?" He flushed.

Michelle squinted at him for a moment, before shrugging. "Yeah," She agreed idly. "Probably. But I'm observant, so."

 _So it might have just been her that noticed._

"Right." Peter agreed as Michelle led them into her room, the crumpled paper with 'MJ' messily scrawled on it taped to the front of it. "Wow, um, your room is..."

"It's got so many _books_!" Ned gaped at the miniature library before them, bookshelves lining the walls and a loft with a small mattress hanging over a desk full of books and a chair that had a few paperbacks weighing it down. "The library has nothing on your room, Michelle!"

"Well, yeah." Michelle smiled sheepishly. "It's a bit much, I know."

"More than a bit much," Peter replied reverently as he ran his fingers over one of the shelves, carefully stepping to avoid the piles of books everywhere. "You have more books than Ned has LEGO pieces."

"Dude, that's literally impossible." Ned objected, though he, too, was staring at the room, openmouthed. "Do you have, like, a secret passage in here or something?"

"Can't tell you that, dweeb." Michelle rolled her eyes. "You can't keep a secret to save your life."

Ned scowled. "I totally can!"

Michelle raised an eyebrow. " _Peter know's Spider-man!_ " She mimicked Ned's voice, completely unimpressed as she expertly maneuvered across the maze that was her floor and scaled her ladder to the loft.

"Okay, well," Ned jutted out his lower lip into a pout. " _Other_ than that."

Michelle snorted and drummed her fingers against the edge of her ladder. "You don't _know_ any secrets other than that. Anyways, come on up. It's less of a mess than down there."

" _My room_ is less of a mess than down there." Peter replied, trying to mimic Michelle's unimpressed stare (and failing). "And my room is..."

"Disasterzone." Ned agreed, shuddering. "He's still finding pieces of that Death Star that I dropped."

"You're the one who dropped it." Peter noted, even as Michelle dangled her legs over the side of the loft and started leafing through a book.

"Doesn't matter, it's still your room." Ned replied haughtily, and Peter couldn't do anything but admit defeat.

"As lovely as hearing you argue is," It obviously wasn't. "Are you coming up or what?"

"You're _reading_ again?"

"You're not?"

"Ned, look at the room, of course she's reading. I feel guilty for _not_ reading."

"True. Michelle, why do you have so many books?"

"I'm rich. Careful, that board on the ladder is a bit loose."

"I've just realized that we're in a _girl's_ room."

"You guys are such losers."

They really couldn't argue with that.

"Why are you talking to us, then?"

"I'm not. I'm reading."

"The Alchemist? Again?"

"Zip it, dweeb."

They did _not_ zip it.


	4. Chapter 4

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It's a quick night, multiple muggings, a murder attempt, and some more unsavory things that are probably going to make nightmares, that takes him long into the night to deal with.

Which is how he ends up here, knocking on Michelle's window just a little before midnight, bleeding out onto his suit and the wall.

"Hi." He waved sheepishly at her, and gestured inside her room. "Can, I, um, come in?"

"God," Was the first thing out of her mouth, half a sigh as she ran her fingers through her already messy hair. "You're such a loser."

And he really didn't know how to respond to that, so he kind of gestured at his torso and mumbled, "I, uh, got stabbed."

Michelle opened the window completely and waved him in. "And you think that I, somehow, can help you." She sighed, completely unimpressed.

Peter scrunched up his nose. "You can't?" He asked hesitantly.

Michelle rolled her eyes and shifted to the side, allowing Peter to come into her room. "I've got a bottle of peroxide in here somewhere, probably." She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between a finger and a thumb. "But it's going to sting."

Peter shifted nervously. "I don't really like peroxide." He mumbled.

"Too bad, dweeb." Michelle shut the window and the curtains, shooting Peter an unimpressed stare. "You came to me so now I'm forcing my help upon you."

Peter laughed nervously. "How is that logical?" He asked.

"It's not." Michelle shrugged and rummaged through her desk, before pulling out a bottle of peroxide and a small towel. "But you're dealing with it anyways, so it doesn't matter if it's logical or not."

His laugh came out a lot less nervous this time, and Michelle was quick to shush him.

"My parents are still sleeping." She reminded him quietly. "I know that you don't sleep, but typically people do, so you've got to keep it on the down low."

"Okay," Peter agreed, smiling slightly at her. "What was keeping _you_ up so late if people need to sleep?"

Michelle cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head to the side. "I did say typically, didn't I?" At Peter's answering smile, she picked up the book and showed him the cover. "The Alchemist."

" _Again._ Michelle, this is like, the fourth time that I've seen you rereading it."

"Read it more times than that," Michelle responded as she wiped away the white bubbles pouring out of Peter's stab wound. "Ugh, it got infected. Would it be too optimistic to want criminals to clean their knives?"

Peter cracked up. " _Wait,_ guys, we can't mug anyone yet! I've got to clean up my baby!"

"Ugh, that damn Spider-man!" Michelle mimicked a high falsetto. "How _dare_ he get his blood on _my_ clean knife?"

"So inconsiderate!" Peter agreed in a nasally voice.

They both burst into laughter.

"A bit of a stretch?" Peter asked with a wry grin.

Michelle smiled back, warm and soft, not as bright as Peter's but still as kind. "Just a bit." She agreed.

(The next time that Peter saw a knife at a mugging, he couldn't stop laughing and eventually the muggers got so terrified of what he was laughing at that they turned themselves in.)


	5. Chapter 5

The meet up, coincidentally, in a cafe.

Michelle's already there, curled up like a cat in the corner with her knees tucked into her chest and her chin tucked into her knees as she rests her elbows and her book on the table and skims over it, a cup of tea held firmly in hand and engrossed even as Peter wanders over.

"Loser," She greets him casually, without looking up.

Without missing a beat, Peter grins back at her and answers, "Bookworm," with a dip of his head as greeting.

The edges of her lips pull up into a crooked little smile and he takes this as an invitation (or at least an okay) to sit down across from her. "Shouldn't you be off, saving the world?" She asks teasingly, but from the way that she unfurls, one leg pulling down so her toes touch the floor and the other bending so that the sole of her shoe is resting against her inner thigh, she's comfortable with him being there.

"Never," Peter answers gravely as he takes a sip of his coffee and grimaces at the taste, almost grateful for the heat that burns his tongue. (At least, he muses, it covers up the bitterness. But alas, it's a necessary evil.) "I always leave that up to the professionals, like the Avengers."

She laughs, because they both know that it's a complete and utter lie, and he laughs with her.

"But, seriously," Peter doesn't seem very serious, no matter how hard he tries, because there are still traces of laughter on his face and a little smile on his lips. "Can't a guy just get some coffee and enjoy sitting with a friend?"

"Never." Michelle deadpans, offering Peter a blank stare. "Everyone knows that you must first go through the ancient ritual of doing the chicken dance on a counter top and buy a million tulips in order to enjoy coffee with a friend."

"No tulips, sorry," Peter laughs, making a show of patting his clothes to check. "But if you really require a chicken dance, I could be coerced."

Michelle's eyes immediately light up, and she slips a bookmark into her book and gives Peter her full, undivided attention. "Do it." She breathes, a Peter shrinks away with a small, nervous giggle.

"Um," He says, and she leans in closer so that he quite look at anything but her. She smells like old books and fresh wood and cinnamon. "That's not a very good attempt at coercing me."

Michelle raises an eyebrow at him and he _almost_ gives in, but _no,_ he's staying strong.

"What are you reading?" He asks in an attempt to change the subject.

She gives him a smile that reminds him that she knows what he's doing, and is only going along with it because she's a benevolent dictator and nothing more. "The Alchemist."

"Again." Peter laughs, because, "Wow, you really love that book, don't you?"

"It's very important to me," Michelle agrees, a soft smile smoothing out her features before she realizes what she's doing and adopts a bored expression. "Have you read it yet?"

Peter hums thoughtfully. "I'm not much of a book person. More of a wires person, honestly."

"Yeah, well, there's a reason you were in the robotics club." Michelle shoots him a duly unimpressed look. "Maybe you just haven't found the right book yet."

Peter runs a finger against the rim of his cup. "Maybe," He allows, closes his eyes, and then sighs quietly, "Ben loved books. He always said that they were almost as good as me and Aunt May." He laughed at that, and then peered up at Michelle. "Sorry. That was awkward. Bringing up my dead uncle."

Michelle looked like she might cry for a moment, so she cleared her throat and offered Peter a shrug. "It's good. It's a good part that helps you complete the stages of grief. Talking's supposed to help and stuff."

Peter smiled at that.

Michelle figured that she had enough fun being a benevolent dictator and moved to a demanding dictatorship. "So, chicken dance."

Peter groaned.

(He ended up doing it anyways. Somehow. He refused to return to that cafe for three months.)


	6. Chapter 6

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It's been two days since Michelle's started missing school and Peter's beginning to get a little worried.

"Do you think she's sick?" He asks Ned over lunch, and Ned frowns at his empty carton of milk.

"Maybe," He allows.

Cindy, who's been walking by with Betty, stops and stares at them. "You guys are so dim." She sighs with a roll of her eyes. "It's _that_ time."

"Oh." Peter turns bright red. "But then why isn't she coming to school?"

Cindy wrinkles her nose. "Do you know how much it hurts?" She demands.

Peter blinks and Cindy groans.

He decides to stop by after school anyways, just to make sure she's alright.

Her mom hands him a cup of ginger tea and he holds up a bar of chocolate that he'd bought. "She's in her room." Her mom said quietly, and then added, "I don't think you two will be able to do much together."

"That's okay." Peter answers. "I'm just making sure she's okay."

Her mom laughs at that, a light, tinkling sound that makes Peter feel like he's five years old and doesn't understand a single thing about the world again.

And as soon as he steps into the room he realizes exactly why she laughed like that.

Michelle's curled up in her bed, a mess of pillows and a blanket hanging over her as a trash can that smells like barf sits innocently next to her bed. A bottle of medicine lays sideways on the ground, and her face is as pale as a sheet.

When he gets a bit closer he notices that she's been crying, but now she seems like she's too tired to make a sound.

"You okay?" He asks quietly.

She closes her eyes and shakes her head no, the small motion seeming like it's taken all her effort as he head smashes back into the bed full force.

"I brought you tea." Peter thinks of Aunt May telling him _it doesn't hurt much for me, but I had a roommate who would spend all wee just passed out because it hurt so badly_ and of the last time he got so sick that he collapsed. "I'll go get a spoon for you so that I can feed it to you and you don't have to get up, okay?"

It's a testament to how bad Michelle must be feeling because she doesn't even argue, just closes her eyes and makes a little whine of pain.

Peter squeezes her hand and moves quickly, thinking to himself _there's no way this happens once a month. That's just insane._

Then he thinks of Michelle's tendency to skip class and miss school for days on end, and he wonders if it had been once a month and he had just somehow never noticed it.

As he helps her with the tea, he tries to remember what May liked to do when he was sick.

"Want me to read for you?" He asked quietly as he smoothed her hair back from her face.

"Yeah." Her voice sounded small and pained and so unlike Michelle that he wondered for a second if they had gotten it wrong and she was actually dying from some really awful virus. "Alchemist."

He looked through her bookshelves and eventually found it under a heap of notebooks. _"The boy's name was Santiago..."_

(The next day, when Michelle arrived looking healthy and perfectly normal, she raised an eyebrow at Peter and said, "Dairy's really bad for you when you're having your period.")

(She ate the chocolate, though.)

 **THE END**


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